receive it in the waters of the river Jordan, in which our Saviour is recorded to have been baptized for our example; but God, who knows what is fittest for me, is pleased to grant it me now in this place; therefore, let me not be delayed; for if he that is Lord both of life and death, be pleased to continue my life in this world, and if he have determined that I shall any longer hold assemblies with the people of God, and shall once in the church communicate in the prayers together with the congregation, I will henceforward keep myself to such courses of life as become a servant of God." 'This he spake; and they performing the ceremonies, put in execution the divine ordinance, and made him partaker of the unspeakable gift, requiring of him the professions that are usual; and so Constantine, the only man of all the emperors that ever were, being regenerated by Christ's ordinance, was initiated; and being made partaker of the divine seal, he rejoiced in spirit, and was renewed and filled with the divine light,' &c. It is not material to mention the story which Nicephorus *, a thousand years after, sets on foot, That he was baptized at Rome, by Pope Sylvester, near the beginning of his reign; because it is all one to our purpose. Baronius greedily embraces this latter account; I suppose, because it makes for the credit of the church of Rome, and helps to dress up the fable of the Donation; but Perron, Petavius, and others, forsake him in this, as being too improbable, since it was so lately invented. . Since both by the one and the other of these accounts he was not baptized in infancy, we must enquire of the religion of his parents; and, first, of his father Constantius Chlorus. To think that Constantine, whose name all people, both learned and unlearned, remember by the token *Hist. Eccl. lib. 7, c. 33. + Ad Annum, 324. that he was the first Christian emperor, at least of his race, should have a Christian emperor to his father, does appear so great and so palpable a blunder, that any one would pass a severe consure on it, were it not that the learned Camden has let drop an expression sounding that way. He having occasion, in his Account of the City of York, to speak of Constantius, the father of Constantine, calls him "An excellent emperor, endowed with all moral and Christian virtues after his death deified, as appears by the old coins." The latter part of this sentence does not suffer one to think that Camden did, in the former part of it, mean that Constantius was really a Christian, but only that he favoured the Christians, and had himself virtues something like those of a good Christian; for Christian emperors were not often deified by the Heathens; and accordingly, when Fuller had, in his Church History, at the year 305, reflected on this saying of Camden, as going too far, since Constantius was no otherwise a Christian than by that rule, He that is not against us, is on our side; Heylin, in his Animadversions on that book, though he rebuked Fuller, as being too tart upon so great a man as Camden, yet grants the thing, viz. that Constantius was not a thorough-paced Christian. What Camden spoke, he spoke only by the by; but some Antipædobaptists do go about seriously to justify this, and make an argument of it for their tenet. If only Danvers had done so, I should not have taken any notice of it; for he is used to such arguments; but Mr. Stennet also has not shewn the candour to throw away such a false prop to their cause; but reckons Constantine among those whose "not submitting to this ordinance till they were adult, though born of Christian parents, shews (he says) that infant baptism was not universally received." Answ. to Russen, p. 47. Of the rest that he there reckons up, I must speak in the following; but Constantine they ought, of their own accord, to have left out; for it does but hurt their cause to build on a supposal, which almost every one knows to be a mistake in matter of fact, Yet something Mr. Danvers has to say for this too, that Constantius was a Christian. He takes out of the. Magdeburgenses a piece of a sentence of Eusebius, where, speaking of Constantine, he, says he, was bonus a bono, pius a pio: A good man, son of a good man; a pious man, son of a pious man.' It is not worth the while to look whether this be truly quoted or not. It is certain that Eusebius, out of his desire to honour Constantine, and all that belonged to him, did stretch his expressions to farther reaches than this; as where he says, "Constantine became a follower of his father's piety [or pious favour, or respect] toward our religion;" and at another place, +"He considered unto what God he should address, &c. and so he resolved to reverence his father's God only." * These places being picked out by themselves, would make one think that Constantius had professed Christianity; but whoever reads the whole account will (whether he be prejudiced for one or the other side of this controversy) agree, that all that is meant by these compliments amounts but to this, That at the time when his fellow emperors did bitterly persecute the Christians, he, on the other side, favoured them, and skreened them as much as he could, and on all occasions shewed a good opinion of them and their religion; and so it is in the places themselves explained, not that he sever made it his own religion. He died a Heathen; and that he was by the Heathens deified after his death, appears not only by the coins, but also by Eusebius's words. 7 Besides, Eusebius himself determines this matter clearly and fully (as far as concerns our purpose) in the place before recited t, when, having related Constantine's baptism, he adds, "That he was the first of all the emperors that ever were, that being regenerated," &c. ; and again, "That he only, of all that had been, did *Hist. lib. 8, c. 13. + De Vitâ Const. lib. 1, c. 21. § Ibid. c. 75. profess the gospel of Jesus Christ with great liberty of speech," i. e. did make open profession of it. So little do some scraps of sentences picked here and there out of authors for one's purpose signify, to give an account of their true meaning. Beside that, if Constantius had embraced the Christian religion when he was emperor [204]; yet there is no appearance that he had any inclination to it when his son Constantine was born [174], which was 30 years before. As for Helena, Constantine's mother, though the inquiry concerning her religion be not very material, because not many, especially great men, suffer their wives to chuse what religion their sons shall be entered into; yet I made some enquiry; and after I had, in order to discover her religion, searched into the accounts of her condition and parentage, which are so variously given, -some making her a Bithynian, others a Briton (but these last mar their own story, by relating her to be a king's daughter; whereas all about that time speak of her as one of a mean quality, she being in scorn called Strabularia); some taking her for a wife, others for a concubine*, others for an absolute harlot† to Constantius; and those who call her a wife, must consequently grant that he had two at a time, or else that Helena was divorced when he married Theodora, I found it was needless to enquire any farther, when I saw that Eusebius, a witness unquestionable in this matter, says, "That her son Constantinę first brought her to be a godly woman [or Christian] which she was not before." In her old age all agree that she proved a very zealous Christian; and it does something excuse her former way of living, that it was before her Christianity. As for Constantius, the son of Constantine, what has been said of Constantine's late baptism does, without more ado, satisfy us of the reason why his son Con * Oros. lib. 7, c. 25. Lib. 3, de vità Const. c. 47. + Nicephorus, lib. 7, c. 18. Constan stantius was not baptized in infancy [217]. tine probably was not resolved what religion to be of; but certainly was not baptized when Constantius was born, nor a long time after. Concerning Fausta, the mother of this Constantius," the daughter of Maximianus Herculius, the bloodiest enemy the Christians ever had, whom Constantine was forced to marry for reason of state, there is no proba. bility that she was a Christian when this son was born, and very little that she was ever so at all; for Constantine put her to death not long after. On the contrary, some histories speak of her endeavours to alienate her husband's mind from that religion *. Constantius not having been baptized into the Christian religion in infancy (as it was impossible he should) but coming afterwards to the knowledge of it, and approving it, yet he did as his father had done before, i. e. he deferred his baptism to the end of his life; for it was but just before † his death [261] that he was baptized by Euzoius, the Arian Bishop of Antioch. About five or six years before, Lucifer, Bishop of Caralis, had wrote his mind very plainly and bluntly to him in defence of Athanasius, whom he grievously persecuted; and told him, that instead of abusing Athanasius, he had "great need to desire that holy priest of God to pray to God for him for the forgiveness of his impieties, as Job's friends desired Job; and to procure himself to be baptized by him, or some of his fellowbishops." St. Hilary had complained § that he, credendi formam ecclesiis nondum regeneratus imponeret : — should pretend to prescribe a form of faith to the churches, when he was not yet regenerated [i. e. bap'tized himself." Indeed, both he and his father Constantine, were guilty of such wickedness, even after their declaring for the Christian Religion (Constantine in murdering so many * Mic. Glycas, lib. 4, Hist, +Athanas. de Synodis Socrat. H. E. lib. 2, c. ult Lucifer pro Athanasio, lib. 1. § De Synodis prope finem. |